Clark State College honored the winners of the 2021 Voices of the Valley Poetry Contest at a banquet held Friday, November 19.
This past spring, Clark State Creative Writer Club students under the guidance of faculty advisers Chris Bays and Tabitha Parker hosted The 2021 Voices of the Valley Poetry Contest – open to area high schools, colleges, and universities – and also the second annual on-campus essay contest. The poetry contest’s theme focused on “Hope in a time of crisis; recovery from the stressors of life.” The essay contest focused on well-researched essays.
The essay contest was judged by Associate Professor Tabitha Parker, Professor Chris Bays, and Arvilla Fee, editor of Voices of the Valley, Clark State College’s student journal.
The following Clark State students shined the brightest with their critical insight and thorough research:
1st Place – Natalie Jones’ “Traumatic Experiences Lead to Obesity”
2nd Place – Gracie Northington’s “Brave Women of World War I”
3rd Place – Joy Plassenthal’s “Homosexuals Should Be Allowed to Adopt”
For the Voices of the Valley Poetry Contest 2021, poems based on the theme of “Hope in a time of crisis; recovery from the stressors of life” were submitted by students from Antioch College, Beavercreek High School, Benjamin Logan High School, Cedarville University, Clark Shawnee High School, Clark State College, Southeastern Local High School, The Supreme Court of Ohio Judicial College, and Wittenberg University.
The contest was judged blindly (without sight of student names) by D. Scot Hinson, Associate Professor of English at Wittenberg University, Tabitha Parker, Associate Professor of English at Clark State College, and Arvilla Fee, student editor of Voices of the Valley as well as an award-winning poet and Adjunct Professor at Clark State College.
The following poets’ voices shined the brightest based on this year’s theme of “Hope in a time of crisis; recovery from the stressors of life.”
Tied for 1st Place –Nikki Mae Howard, Wittenberg University, for “Playing with ghosts in the garden: an alternative to suicide” & Amaya Williams, Clark Shawnee High School, for “Cataclysm”
2nd Place – Mykel Cook, Clark State College, for “Our Movement”
3rd Place – Kjersten Stromberg, Clark State College, for “One College Night”
Honorable Mention winners include:
Luke Ault, Clark Shawnee High School, for “Antithesis”
Emma Foster, Cedarville University, for “The Life Giver”
Anna-Claire Crichton, Wittenberg University, for “perhaps, nothing”
The winning submissionss can be read in Clark State College’s student journal Voices of the Valley 2021, Issue 4, edited by Arvilla Fee. Contact Chris Bays at baysc@clarkstate.edu or Tabitha Parker at parkert@clarkstate.edu for information on how to purchase a copy of the journal)
Those interested in participating in the spring 2022 essay and poetry contests, please contact Chris Bays at baysc@clarkstate.edu or Tabitha Parker at parkert@clarkstate.edu.